Friday, January 3, 2014

Headline:  "A Midwinter's Night Dream" or "We whipped it, we whipped it good"

Ancient One

Zhar

Investigators

Luke Robinson, the Dreamer - Susan
Amanda Sharpe, the Student - Rob
Joe Diamond, the Private Eye - Justin 

Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rachelle
Mandy Thompson, the Researcher - Robbilee
Gloria Goldberg, the Author - "Young" James

End of Game

We closed and sealed 6 gates, with 10/11 doom tokens on the track.  That was a close one!

House Rules/Game Setup
Robbi randomly selected 3 Ancient Ones, and James selected Zhar from those three.  

Since this is James's first Arkham Horror game, and some of us are very tired (we're starting at 9pm), we elected not to use Heralds, Guardians, or Institutions.

We each chose a character of our choice, once we realized how tough Zhar was going to be (why do the new players always choose such tough AOs?).  Then we determined relationships:

Luke and Amanda:  Business Associates
Patrice and Mandy:  Socially Connected
Joe and Gloria:  Collectors

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow
Kingsport Horror
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror
The Lurker at the Threshold

Heralds, Guardians, and Institutions

[none]

Highlights

  *  The game started with Justin and James dropping all of the little tokens on the floor.
*  Then Justin spent ~1 hour describing every aspect of the game to James in great detail.
*  Due to the rumor drawn on the 2nd turn, the 1st player ends up having to draw Innsmouth Look cards.  When it's Rob's turn, he has to draw THREE of them.
*  Rachelle's and Robbi's relationship comes in really handy - they end up getting a lot of Allies. It's pretty cool to be Socially Connected.  Rachelle had 3 allies in the end:  Anna, Ruby, and some other dude.
*  Rob exclaims "I'm just a sexy student, all I have is a professor!" in reference to how much money someone had during a play. All he has is professor Morgan.
*  For an extended period of time, we had the Environment (Mystic) Mythos card "Noden's Favor," which made it cost 2 fewer clue tokens to seal gates.  Woohoo!
*  Robbi wins the game as she rolls to close and seal the final gate.  Patrice gave Mandy a few clues to help out at the end.  Also of note, Robbi allowed Greta to sit on her lap for the final roll.  :)
*  While waiting around for the last few investigators to return to Arkham and close and seal the final gates, Luke and Gloria blessed a few other investigators.
*  Susan actually went insane from her bad luck, consistently missing horror check rolls.
*  "It was a wonderful experience," notes James.
*  "I'm sleepy," notes Rob.

Friday-Saturday, October 4-5, 2013

Headline:  "The Lurker at Susan’s Birthday”

Ancient One

Cthugha

Investigators

Mandy Thompson, the Researcher – Rob

Minh Thi Phan, the Secretary – Rob

Lily Chen, the Martial Artist – Susan

Rita Young, the Athlete - Susan

End of Game

We closed and sealed 6 gates.  The next Mythos card would have burst open a sealed gate and added the final doom token.  We sealed them just in the nick of time!

House Rules/Game Setup
Susan received The Lurker at the Threshold from Rachelle and Justin for a birthday present and we took it out for a spin.  We each chose two characters from eight drawn at random and then drew one relationship card each for the characters that we played.

Mandy and Minh Thi – Friendly Rivals

Lily and Rita – Fellow Travelers

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow
Kingsport Horror
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror
The Lurker at the Threshold

Heralds, Guardians, and Institutions

Nodens
Organized Crime
Lurker at the Threshold (not too bad, as long as you don't accept Power)

Highlights

·        Minh Thi took Foolish the Cat as a Bound Ally due to the first Reckoning card.

·        Rita defeated the Dunwich Horror with the Flute of the Outer Gods.  Cool!

·        On the establishing Mythos card, 2 rumors were initially drawn and discarded.  Thanks, rules!

·        We dispelled a rumor:  Virulent Disease.  No one fell victim to the illness.

·        Minh Thi completed her Personal Story and chose Young Zoog, the Otter, which got rid of Foolish, the Bound Ally.  [Cheating?]

·        Lily Chen, famous for lots of sanity and stamina, as well as restoring both to herself during upkeep, has two Allies:  Sir William Brinton and Duke, each of whom extend her maximum sanity and stamina.  Since the Allies were not really of any use, she ended up discarding them both to get her maximum sanity and stamina restored.

·        Minh Thi used the new card, Key Of Something-Or-Other, to enter a gate.  Neat card!

·        Lily Chen used the new spell Plumb of Something to get Mandy back from an Other World.  Neat card!

·        Rita ended up as Deputy with Necrophobia, Cracked Ribs, and was Despondent.  BUT she had 2 kerosene weapons and 2 Molitov cocktails.  Don’t mess with crazy!  She’ll burn your house down.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Headline:  "Rubble Rubble"  [ala Hamburgler]

Ancient One
Shudde M'ell

Investigators
Luke Robinson, the Dreamer - Susan
Vincent Lee, the Physician - Rob
Jacqueline Fine, the Psychic - Justin
Mandy Thompson, the Researcher - Rachelle

End of Game
We fought and defeated Shudde M'ell

House Rules/Game Setup
Rachelle randomly chose 3 AOs, and we picked Shudde M'ell, since we hadn't played him in a while.

We chose Investigators out of 4 random ones based on their anticipated balancing of abilities and skills, and based on their "Personal Stories."  We're using both the Personal Stories and the "Relationship" cards this time. 

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow
Kingsport Horror
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror

Heralds, Guardians, and Institutions
Rachelle chose these at random:
Tulzscha, The Freen Flame
Hypnos, Lord of Sleep
Miskatonic University, Academic Institution

Highlights
*  Rob's character's story required him to discard 5 clues.  He started with the spell "Vision Quest," which allows him to pick up clues from an entire neighborhood, which sped up the process of passing the personal story!

*  Rob's guy's special ability is to restore stamina.  However, he constantly won items, etc., that allowed him to get MORE stamina.
*  Susan's guy was about to sacrifice the ally Basil Elton to the AO to skip an attack, but she didn't need to.  The investigators beat Shudde.  Basil!  It's summertime currently, with really great basil.  ;)

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Headline: "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here"

Ancient One
Yibb-Tstll  ♀ 

Investigators
George Barnaby, the Lawyer - Susan
Monterey Jack, the Archaeologist - Rob
Norman Withers, the Astronomer - Robbilee
Mandy Thompson, the Researcher - Denis

End of Game
We abandoned the game at 6 out of 11 doom tokens, with no gates closed or sealed in 1 hour of play.  Two rumors came out (one at a time), and there were plenty of clues for Yibb-Tstll to use against us.  However, there was no way to pick up the clues, due to the mummies in our environment (see below).

House Rules/Game Setup
Other possible headlines: 
"A Bunch of Brains Can't Save You!" (lawyer, archaeologist, astronomer, researcher)
"This Game Continues to Suck." - Rob
"Yibb's Secret Band of Mummies Keep Investigators from Fighting Back" (get it? "band"? lol...)

We most likely chose an Ancient One at random, but it's possible that Denis chose this one, since he hadn't played in a while.

Investigators were most likely chosen from 4 possible randomly dealt investigators, after finding out the Ancient One's abilities and discussing winning tactics.

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow (we use the new cards from this, but we never have actually had the 'play' enter play)
Kingsport Horror - we left out Heralds and Guardians
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror

Highlights
* The game began in a promising way, with unique items and skills during Arkham encounters.
* Rob toasts and shows off an actual glass of whiskey:  "I'm preventing sanity loss."
* Mummies are worse than rumors!  Due to a "clothing drive," we could barely move for 3 full rounds at the beginning of the game.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Headline: "This is the game that never ends, yes it goes on and on, my friends..."

Ancient One
Glaaki [randomly chosen by Rachelle]

Investigators
Jim Culver, the Musician - Susan (chosen for the "Dead Man's Stomp," to stomp Cultists)
"Ashcan" Pete, the Drifter - Rob (chosen to select from unique items, to find magical weapons for the end fight)
Joe Diamond, the Private Eye - Justin (twice in row... time to branch out ;))
Amanda Sharpe, the Student - Robbilee (¡skillz!)
Mandy "Tits McGee" Thompson, the Researcher - Rachelle (chosen for the re-roll option, of course)
Harvey Walters, the Professor - Denis (¡sanity!)

End of Game
We successfully defeated Glaaki, and no Servants of Glaaki ever entered play (Praise Lovecraft!).

We intended to fight Glaaki from the beginning, rather than trying to control gates. Having 6 players rather than our usual 4, the limits were different from "normal," and this seemed to be the best way to go.

However, the game was dragging on, with many gate surges and no new gates, as well as rumors that diverted our resources and efforts. We were all getting tired, so we decided to just end things in Arkham and the Other Worlds and wake Glaaki up. Yes, this is illegal. There were only 8 out of 12 doom tokens on at the time. We had few magical weapons, but slowly and surely we hacked away at Glaaki, shriveling him, and then attacking him with an Elephant Gun. The Terror Track got pretty high, but we made it with rounds to spare.

House Rules/Game Setup
Ancient One chosen randomly by Rachelle, since she isn't always in town when we play.
Investigators chosen from 3 possible randomly dealt investigators, after finding out the Ancient One's abilities and discussing winning tactics.
I forget how we chose the Guardian and Herald...

Expansions in play
Dunwich Horror
Kingsport Horror - this time we tried out both a Guardian (Bast) and a Herald (Tulzscha)
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
The King in Yellow
Black Goat of the Woods

Highlights
* Due to Glaaki and Tulzscha, Cultists were complicated.
* "Ashcan" Pete was barred from Miskatonic U for burning books. ("Ashcan"! ha!)
* Mandy got sucked through to Another Time and stayed there for a good 4-5 turns. (not exactly a 'highlight,' but something of note..)
* Several of us went to get a Bank Loan to pay off the Mad Bomber, and hoping to have leftover cash for Magical Weapons, and ended up defaulting. There was a lot of meeting up and hastily handing over all items before defaulting.
* No one wants the Milk of Shub-Niggurath. Who would?
* There were a lot of Allies. Not enough weapons, but plenty o friends. Too bad we weren't fighting Atlach-Nacha.
* There were lots of double-entendres. Amanda Sharpe caught John LeGrasse "playing with a bone." She then "pumped Eric Colt for information."
* There were lots of double-encounters. "Go to X location and have another encouter there."